Foreword

These autobiographical stories came out of my idea to write my memoirs. Of course the very word seems a tad high-falutin. Who writes memoirs? I’m not a great man who’s done great things. I’ve been a professional musician part and full time for most of my life so while not remotely famous I’m not entirely unknown. But my achievements, if that word is at all warranted, are…I don’t want to say mediocre, I’ve written some good shit, … let’s just say modest.

Not that only the great get to write memoirs. You also got your extreme adversity types. You survive a few bear attacks, or your family gets washed away in a tsunami, that sort of thing. It can even be something you brought on yourself, like a decade or two being addicted to meth. Hell it could be even the ever common thing with alcohol. But I’m not in that club. I’ve never broken a bone in my body, never been in a war, never lost all my money gambling. Oh, I’ve done plenty of drugs, but never so much as wrecked the family car.

Maybe if I was not from around here (wherever here might be, dear reader). Some stranger in a strange land scenario, that might be interesting. Nope. I’m a white guy who has faced, and here the word fits, mediocre adversity.

So who am I kidding. Hopefully you. I’ve always liked stories, always been a reader. And some memoirs are justified by just being a good tale, a good yarn as it was. Or even as it wasn’t, who’ll know the difference.

The notion to write a memoir has a few sources. But the main urge came to me when I was estranged from my younger son Max. For a while he didn’t want much to do with me. Thankfully we’re past that and things couldn’t be better between us. But at the time I desperately wanted to connect with him. He was (and is) so much like me, in good and not so good ways. I wanted to share what little wisdom I’d gleaned. And if he wanted to hate me, maybe he could at least have to hand a more complete picture of who he was so disappointed with.

As I said, we got past all that and we’re good now. And in the meantime he’s got two boys of his own. And that means? Well, that I’m an old fart now, but more importantly that I’ve got grandkids. Maybe they would be interested in what went on in Poppop’s life.

These are my stories. Half remembered but hopefully not half baked. Mostly they are true. I offer that caveat because to make these “good stories” I had to fill in some blanks. Forgive the metaphor but my memory is like Swiss cheese — it holds the basic shape of what occurred but, you know, lots of gaps. I handle these in different ways. In some cases it’s like historical fiction. I try to keep that tactic to the more humorous adventures. When the topic is a bit heavy I try to stick to the real history as much as I can.

Are they good stories? I tried. And I enjoyed it…and am enjoying it. Writing is hard, endlessly iterative. I have a lot of natural laziness and incessant sloppiness to overcome. But there are tools for that now. And if I have anything these days, it’s time. At least for now. So let’s get cracking.